5/29/24: Chengdu's Adorable Pandas!

The night before, Steven and I had arrived from Tibet for several days in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu located in the Sichuan province about 900 miles from both Beijing and Hong Kong. A couple of months earlier, we'd arranged to hire a guide through Tours by Locals to show us giant pandas, a famous Taoist mountain, and a 3rd-century BC irrigation system.

En route to the Dujiangyan Chinese Giant Panda Garden located about 90 minutes from 2,400-year-old Chengdu, Victor, our guide, told us that the city's name translated to "becoming a metropolis." With its 21.5 million population making it the fourth largest city in China, it's safe to say Chengdu is already a metropolis! 

He joked that the city has three nicknames: The City of Turtles because if you look at the city's map, its outline resembles a turtle's shape. It's also called the City of Hibiscus because of its hibiscus trees, not bushes that blossom in the winter. The trees are sometimes called Drunk Hibiscus because the flowers change from white to red just as people's faces change from white to red when they drink! Sadly, all the hibiscus trees were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution when the wood was burned to melt iron. The hibiscus trees began to be replanted in 2003 in the suburbs. Lastly, Chengdu is known as the City of Brocade because of its rich history of silk production on the Southern Silk Road, which began 4700 years ago.

Of the 7.34 million cars in Chengdu, the largest car population in China, 35% are electric. Victor said that the government has imposed strict rules to reduce the number of cars on the roads: if the last number of your license plate is 1 or 6, you can't drive on Monday, if it's 2 or 7, you can't drive on Tuesday, etc. People get around the rules by buying a second car with different numbered license plates!

He mentioned that if you want to see 5,000-year-old walls, go to Xian. If you want to see 5 old buildings, go to Beijing's Forbidden City. If you want to see 50 old buildings, go to Shanghai. But, if you want to see the oldest sites in China AND pandas, come to Chengdu because it has sites far older than the terracotta warriors in Xian!

Victor stated that pandas are called Xiong Mao or bear cat but they're known in Taiwan as cat bear. The giant pandas are the black-and-white ones we're all familiar with and are close to the bear family. We'd also see little red pandas that are closer to the raccoon family at the giant panda base. The 2021 giant panda population census found there were 2,658 in the world including 1,836 in the wild located in three mountain provinces. Compare those numbers to 10,000 red pandas in Asia. In 1996, there were just 31 giant pandas - fortunately, those numbers have increased hugely because of Chinese protection of the giant panda.

Many pandas lost their lives because of the food crisis generations ago. Their main food is bamboo but they're also carnivores. Did you ever imagine that there are 134 types of bamboo but 'only' 24 types that captive pandas eat and that bamboo must be the freshest? I hadn't known that pandas are very aggressive animals and fight over their territory. 

A panda's black-and-white coloring acts as a camouflage with white snow and black stones. Pandas have poor eyesight and are colorblind. 

With a sense of pride, Victor told us that the word bonsai is actually a Chinese word and not Japanese as most people, ourselves included, think. Bonsai are either small-scale for a tabletop or are large tree-sized ones. Even though New Zealand is associated with the kiwi fruit, they're originally from China even though Kiwis call them Chinese gooseberries!

There are five giant panda bases in Sichuan province where Chengdu is located. The bases are charged with research and rescue and creating baby pandas with artificial insemination. The panda mating season is from March to May because female pandas produce just six eggs a year and only between those months. The blood of female pandas is tested then every two weeks. A female panda can have up to five babies at a time but can only nurse one panda, and the rest are abandoned. Newborn pandas are pink, weigh from 100-150 grams, about 3.5 to 5 ounces, and only develop ears after birth. Victor told us that only ten percent of male pandas can mate because they consider it a waste of time. 

After mother pandas look after their babies for two years, the young are kicked out! These eighteen-month-old twin pandas have 38-42 teeth compared to 28-32 teeth for humans.

The pandas' first feeding at the base is at nine am and consists of bamboo; their second at eleven am comprises carrots and apples, and a panda cake made from protein, sugar, salt, rice powder, and calcium so they don't gain too much weight. Pandas have a poor digestive system and spend ten hours a day eating and another ten hours sleeping. Their poop is monitored daily to make sure they're eating well - I'd hate to have that job!

Infant pandas, those under a year, sleep in trees; older ones sleep in caves. But pandas, unlike bears, don't hibernate. 

Pandas 'eat' 34 kilos of bamboo but only actually consume ten percent of the 34 kilos of bamboo they're given because the pandas are very picky eaters. When pandas are given bamboo, they peel off the green skin and only eat the inner, yellow part. 

Pandas are born with 5.5 fingers including a pseudo thumb without a nail. Hua Mei was a female born in August 1999 at the San Diego Zoo.

Pandas in the wild live to an average age of twenty while captive pandas live up to thirty. In the wild, pandas' greatest predators are snow leopards. They eat while walking but only consume a few centimeters of bamboo at a time. 

Giant pandas make 51 types of sounds depending on if they're hungry, angry (then it's like a dog barking), bored, satisfied (then it's like a horse neighing), and uncomfortable (then it's like a sheep baaing)!

The Chengdu area has the largest territory of panda parks and the largest number of pandas as the altitude is 800-900 meters higher in Duijiang. 

Janina: this one's for you!

After a short walk from the panda enclosures, we came to the red panda enclosure. They weigh 10-15kg and are 80cm when standing, about 2.5 ft. By contrast, giant pandas are 1.50-1.80cm when standing a minimum of 6ft. Victor said it's hard to tell what sex a giant panda is when it's standing.

Red pandas always live together as they like to protect themselves. When they're born, they have gray hair. People didn't realize they were a different breed from the giant panda and put them in the same enclosure initially. In the wild, red pandas stand up to scare off their enemies but they're so small, the tactic doesn't work well! They mate from January until May and go down a tree headfirst.

Red pandas have nine rings on their tails which helps them balance. I think I need a few of those rings! Keepers can be in the same enclosure as red pandas aren't aggressive. Red pandas love pumpkins and pheasants they're given them on their birthdays! 

They eat over 1.5kgs of fresh bamboo leaves a day, the equivalent of 30% of their body weight. Because of the low nutritional value of bamboo, red pandas sometimes spend 13 hours eating per day. They also eat bird eggs, insects, fruits, and flowers. 

The red panda was scientifically classified by Western scientists and named 'panda.' After the giant panda was discovered in 1869 by a French priest, the smaller panda was referred to as a 'red panda.' Red pandas live in the mountains with a mixed deciduous-conifer forest found in the Himalayas and southwest China. They do best in a consistently cool and moist environment.  

Unlike other mammals, male and female red pandas are the same size and are difficult to distinguish. Red pandas are considered sexually mature at 18 months. Newborn cubs don't have white facial markings or have rings on their tails. The tail rings gradually appear one month later and facial markings a month after that. The lifespan of a red panda is longer in captivity than in the wild, with the average being 8-10 in the wild and 15-20 in captivity. The oldest red panda in captivity was 21 years old. 

Even though this was a panda base, there were a couple of black bears onsite!

When our guide noticed quite a crowd of people congregating, we hurried over and saw XiXi, a female panda born in August 1988.

We learned that baby pandas, those between one and three years, have to be separated between 2.5 and three years of age because they're so aggressive and they have 320kg strength of jaw power, stronger even than black bears!

Almost three-year-old Le Le, just back from Singapore last year, was always kept inside there because of the intense heat. He was so afraid of rain or 'water falling from the sky' that he was put with other baby pandas: almost three-year-old twin brother, Qing Zai, and sister Qing Bao. Fortunately, Le Le acclimated after a while. 

Steven and I hadn't noticed cute sewer covers since we were in Japan!

Perhaps the cutest picture yet!

The sign said, "Don't pick bamboo shoots."

The last enclosure belonged to Chao Tian Jiao, a male born in August 2020, and Dun Dun, a female born a month earlier. We only saw one roaming around the large area and I have no idea which one it was! It was fun seeing at least one panda being active and not simply munching bamboo the entire time.

Victor commented that the bamboo groves in the panda base are never cut down for the pandas' consumption. He added that captive pandas don't survive when released into the wild.  

Our visit to the panda base was just a short part of a very long day with Victor which also included touring the sacred Taoist Quincheng Mountain and the 3rd century BC Dujiangyan Irrigation System. As we're leaving on September 11th for a seven-week trip to Luxembourg, Sicily, Malta, and Tunisia, I'll be posting about that trip going forward. My hope is to then post about the rest of our trip to Chengdu, Hong Kong, Brunei, and the few days in the Phillippines that concluded our Asia trip.

Next post: Somewhere in Luxembourg!

Posted on September 10th, 2024, from our home in Colorado. My sincere thanks to each of you for following our Asia trip up to this point. I hope you will also enjoy our adventures in Europe and North Africa. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones and stay safe and well.